i7 920 Rig

[spigen]

-Stay with the Vigor Moosoon III its really nice I have it on my i920, ive overclocked to 3.9 w/ my ram at 1500mhz, but it is not neeeded. I have it clocked at 3.2 w/ ram at 1600mhz. idle temps under 35c, load around 45c.

-Asus P6T sounds nice, I have the Rampage extreme2 and love it. Asus is the way to go unless you are a evga fan.

-get whatever graphics card you feel comfortable spending money on, don't let anyone talk you out of getting a ****** card.

-check the usuable ram on the motherboard. I had the a Asus x48 motherboard and OCZ memory would not run correctly. This time around I got the best. Corsair works great with the new generation Asus boards.

- I have the Cosmos S case. its nice, i had to take out the fan on the side to fit the CPU cooler in. ITS REALLY BIG. I realized even with a large graphics card you don't need a Full Tower unless you plan on

A) Watercooling
B) running more than 5 Hard drives/2 optical drives, etc...

-I would look..this looks nice. NEW antec 900 2
Newegg.com - Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases

(they finally got on the ball and painted the inside black.)
Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-60BPLUSII W Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-V1000Z Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases

but **** i kinda want that new antec. thats sweet.

get this soundcard
Newegg.com - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express Interface Sound Card - Sound Cards

the hard drive is good (i have two, work great). Might want to look into getting a Western Digitial Raptor for your OS and games. Leave the 1TB for movies and storage, etc...

You wont need two optical drives. Just get the blu ray if you plan on watching blu rays on it.

power supply is one of the best.


I would do this:
Newegg.com - ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Power Supplies
Newegg.com - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express Interface Sound Card - Sound Cards
Newegg.com - Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - LG Black 6X Blu-ray DVD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM & 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Model GGC-H20L - Blu-Ray Drives
Newegg.com - Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Socket 1366 Ready - CPU Fans & Heatsinks

and finally for GPU

Newegg.com - EVGA 017-P3-1291-AR GeForce GTX 295 1792MB 896 (448 x 2)-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
or
Newegg.com - ASUS EAH4870X2/HTDI/2G/A Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

 

[veedubfreak]

Watercooling does for a CPU the same thing the water in your engine does. The water absorbs the heat from the cpu, which goes into a radiator that disipates the heat.

 

[scrimstar]

I'm gonna stick to the Cosmos 1000, because I like its looks over all of those cases, and it's very easy to work with. Is that Fatal1ty sound better than the Claro+? It has negative reviews, and it doesn't have the coaxial/ optical jack for my sound system. And why is that Velociraptor so expensive?! Is it that fast, because somebody on another thread the Seagate 7200.12 HDD's were almost as fast.. You guys are giving me a bunch of RAM suggestions. Is the highest voltage for triple channel DDr3 1.65 volts, because no RAM is rated higher than that. Should I go with Corsair, OCZ, or G. Skill?

For the CPU, I found this benchmark on Frosty Tech, and it said the SCCT and Xigamatek Rifle was the best CPU cooler for the 775 CPU's. Are there any other benchmarks with watercooling, and 1366 pin (or at least CPU coolers with the bracket) CPU coolers? And is watercooling really $200 buck for a radiator, and $20 for water?!

 

[veedubfreak]

using over 1.65v can damage the memory controller on the nehalem as per intel specs. The velociraptors are expensive because they are 10k rpm drives. I'd stick with a 320mb drive for os and 1tb drives for storage.
Watercooling is its own adventure. I'd stick with air until you can dedicate the time and research to it.

 

[scrimstar]

I might get G. Skill RAM, because they have low voltage, and look like they can OC well. Most of the other RAM are 1.65 volts, so thanks for telling me. And by 320MB drive, do you mean 1000RPM? I'm researching on watercooling at XtremeSystems' forums

 

[spigen]

all triple channel ram is meant for the x58 motherboards. 1.65v is the recommended voltage, both gskills and corsair are fine.

The xig rifle cooler is nice, i had it on my 775 socket. I dunno if the q9550 processor runs hotter, but my vigor monsoon keeps my i920 much cooler than the rifle did for my q9550. Its a nice cooler, and comes with two fans compared to one...plus has a nice blue glow if you into that.

hard drive configuration is up to you, but having a seperate hard drive for your os and games is nice because of the ability to keep it defraged easier, clean os installs...with out losing your data, etc... I personally just like having my data seperated on diff harddrives. I have my Raptor drive with my (os/programs/games) and my other two 1TB drives with HD/blu ray movies stored on them.

watercooling seems cool, but in the end its not really worth the money and effort. the results im getting from my air cooling is fine. You get caught up with all this talk with GHz and stuff, If you have a nice GPU, 6GB of ram, and a i920 @ 3.2-3.9 you will play all games you ever want.

The fatality sound card has optical out.

 

[veedubfreak]

Like i said earlier, watercooling is its own adventure. After a while you run out of stuff to tinker with

 

[scrimstar]

Is 10k RPM worth it for double the price, third of the amount of memory, and half the cache compared to a 1TB WD Caviar Black? I've heard stuff about Raid 0, and how you combine hardrives, and make it faster.. Can someone give me a tut on that?

 

[veg1992]

Nope, because the price is much higher, and its cost per gigabyte is extremely low....

I'd definitely have the 1TB Black over it

RAID0 does increase fault, so if one drive craps, the whole array is destroyed and you lose ALL the data on there

 

[scrimstar]

That's why I should get two small harddrives, and put the large one without RAID 0? What are the chances of the data being lost?

I decided not to go with watercooling, because it sound compicated, and it's really expensive to just use for a single part.